04.30.2008
Yep. Number forty-seven. I can feel it getting close...
I overslept this morning. That's not usually a big deal. I work from home. So over sleeping just means I do my first email check a little later than I might otherwise. This morning, as I popped open Thunderbird to see what the world had to say to me, I found a nice little email with the subject line:
Re: FICTION SUB: Skin
And of course, it was from the ominous "Fiction Editors".
Now... I've never been published except at a place where I worked - Wired News, WebMonkey being two - so I don't know what the subject line might otherwise say. And I don't know whether they would still use the generic "Fiction Editors" moniker - undoubtedly used for rejections so idiot writers don't have a personal email to send moronic hate mail - but I didn't have a good feeling about this one.
Skin, of course, was my story about to women who go off to a colonized world and discover that the cure to a plague is tobacco. I always figured it would be a hard sell. After all, tobacco is not exactly a product a lot of people even want to be associated with, much less publish a story on how it might be helpful. And I don't know what Strange Horizons issue with it may have been but that seems as likely as anything.
Why?
Well... good question, my little buddy. Because I received their standard rejection letter:
Thank you for submitting "Skin" to Strange Horizons, but we've decided not to accept it for publication. We appreciate your interest in our magazine.
Helpful, right? Right.
With Rejection thirty-nine they called it "fair" in a lot of places and also expressed their reasons why it wasn't accepted.
Now I'm not expecting that kind of thing every time, obviously. But I thought I had crossed a Rubicon with that one. I suppose not or perhaps Skin just wasn't up to snuff.
I don't know.
Anyway... this is rejection forty-seven, coming in after forty-six days. This makes my thirteenth rejection for the year out of fourteen submissions. I still have two out (and need to get my act together to send out more) and that's it.
I wish I had more to report. But, alas...
Take care, kids. And, remember, Colin loves you.